


Conversation over tea

by CactusWren



Category: Alphas, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: All Dialogue, Behind the Scenes, Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-20
Updated: 2012-10-20
Packaged: 2017-11-16 16:01:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/541289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CactusWren/pseuds/CactusWren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I don’t want to <i>turn</i> your brother, Mr. Holmes.  I’d like to think that I can help him.  But not nearly as much as he can help us."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conversation over tea

**Author's Note:**

> I imagine this story taking place partway through the first season of _Alphas_.

“I have to admire you Americans,” Mycroft said pleasantly. “You’re so guilelessly self-serving. So unquestioningly certain of your own – ”

“Exceptionalism?” The gray-haired man across the tea table smiled lopsidedly. “You mean, other countries _don’t_ cheer their Olympic teams with ‘We’re Number Two! We’re Number Two!’?”

“And you’re always surprised, when the loyalties of others turn out to be as strong and as real as your own.” Mycroft’s thin smile vanished. “What makes you think my brother will be ready to – switch sides?”

“Switch sides?” The man blinked. “I thought our nations were on the same side. In any case, I don’t want to _turn_ your brother, Mr. Holmes. I’d like to think that I can help him. But not nearly as much as he can help us.”

There was a silence. “What, exactly, do you – and your people – know about Sherlock?” Mycroft said.

The man drew a spiral-bound notebook from a pocket, flipped pages. “Thirty-two years old, seven years younger than you. Never married. Shares his home – platonic. Apparently asexual, although that may not be innate. Estimates of his IQ _start_ at 170 – all IQ measurements in that range are fairly meaningless, of course – and keep going well into the ‘incalculable’ category. Education equivalent to multiple doctorates, if he could be bothered to get them. Multiple addictions, too, all in abeyance.” Only his eyes moved as he glanced at Mycroft on the word _addictions._ “He has an income from this ‘consulting detective’ business, and another that continues only as long as he stays clean of drugs.”

“Mm.” Mycroft pursed his lips slightly. “Correct so far. Do you know that he’s a sociopath?” He sipped tea.

The man shrugged as he closed the notebook. “I know he’s been called that, even calls himself that. But I’ve dealt with sociopaths. He’s not one. I work now with a high-functioning autist, and Sherlock’s not one of those either.”

“What, then? Bearing in mind that to my knowledge, you’ve never even met him?”

The man sipped tea, then put down the cup. “I’d say he’s one of the best-shielded, best-protected, most vulnerable people I’ve ever run across. A man with a unique ability.”

Mycroft had started to raise his own cup, but stopped. “And you’re searching out persons of … ability?”

“Yes. There’s a small group of such people.”

“Sherlock doesn’t work well in groups.”

The man’s eyebrows went up. “No. No, he wouldn’t.”

“If you ask most people who know him, they’d probably say his greatest _ability_ is to alienate everyone he meets.”

“Of course.” The man nodded thoughtfully. “He’d have to develop that, for his own survival.”

Mycroft sighed. “I’m not used to having to ask this, but – will you be so good as to explain yourself, Doctor?”

The man sat back in his chair, started to speak, stopped. “I – saw you, when I came into the room,” he said after a moment. “You looked me over – Mr. Holmes, you have a trace of your brother’s ability. No more. I could see you assessing everything you saw – ” He waved a hand, indicating himself. “Hair needs cutting, suit off the rack, no tie, probably owns two pair of shoes and this is the other one, passport pocket in the jacket. You probably thought what you were doing was the same as your – ”

“I assure you, I’m familiar with what my brother does.”

“And that’s where you’re wrong. By calling it that – what your brother _does_ – you’ve proven you don’t understand it in the slightest. The words ‘observation’ and ‘analysis’ keep turning up in Sherlock’s files, but they don’t remotely come close to describing his – his ability, his skill. You have a – a trace of it, as I said, and you’ve worked and exercised it and trained it to the maximum – and it’s not a tenth, not a hundredth of what he has without even thinking about it.

“It’s not something he _does,_ any more than you ‘do’ the rhythm of your heart, or your eardrum vibrating when sound strikes it. It – _happens_ to him. It’s involuntary. When he meets a person, everything – _everything,_ shape, dress, face, posture, colors, movements, voice – assaults his senses at once, invades his consciousness, coalesces and forms a whole. Suddenly there’s a complete portrait, in his head.” The man leaned forward. His voice was low and urgent. “And I cannot make this too clear: _h_ _e does not choose for this to happen._ He doesn’t _make_ it happen, he can’t even stop it. Everything about that person, _everything,_ is a part of his awareness.

“You made a conscious decision to examine me, then you deliberately analyzed what you found – all intentional thought processes. It’s not like that for Sherlock. He’d give me the briefest glance and he’d _know_ – everything. That I flew coach, and used earbuds on the plane. That I sprained my elbow in a fall a week ago. That my glasses are six years old and I need a new prescription. He’d hear my stutter, _which you don’t hear,_ and know I didn’t get speech therapy until I was in my teens. He wouldn’t _want_ to learn these things. They’d just be there. _His mind is being invaded._ Constantly. And as long as another person is there, it _doesn’t – ever – stop._

“You said he had a gift for alienating people. If you were subjected – every day, every waking _moment_ – to that sort of unwanted intimacy from every person you met or spoke with or even saw … wouldn’t you want to barricade yourself in any way you could?”

Mycroft raised an eyebrow. “You’re saying it’s a wonder my brother is even as sane as he is.”

“I’m saying he’s had to cut himself off from people, for his own survival. If you hit the thing that’s attacking you hard enough, it might go away.”

“Mm. More tea?”

“Please.”

Mycroft addressed himself to the teapot and cups. “Is this why he turned to – chemical help?”

The man nodded. “Of course. The cocaine – you’re not a neurologist, but this is the best metaphor I can offer – turned up the volume, amplified the workings of his own consciousness, and to some extent overrode or drowned out the intrusive signals. The opioids had a dulling or muting effect. That he can get along now with nothing more than nicotine and caffeine is a tribute to his coping abilities. His intelligence is a blessing, you know,” the man added thoughtfully. “If he’d been only as smart as you or I, he’d have been psychotic by the time he was ten. And you should thank God he never started drinking heavily.”

“And since neither of us is a fool, I won’t take ‘only as smart as you or I’ as an insult. What do you want with Sherlock, Doctor?”

The man stirred his tea. “Does he know about the – guardianship? Or whatever you call it here?”

Mycroft froze for an instant. “I won’t ask how _you_ know about it,” he said calmly, “but I’ll request that it not be made common knowledge.”

“Of course.”

“In answer to your question – no, he doesn’t. That I hold Sherlock’s power of attorney, and have since he was institutionalized, is one thing I’ve managed to keep from him – and from everyone, or so I believed. As far as he or those he associates with know, under law, he’s his own man, and his decisions are his to make.”

“And how many of them _are_ his to make?”

“Enough. Very nearly all, in fact.”

The man’s dark eyes challenged Mycroft. “All except those you prefer to make yourself.”

“All except those I feel he should be – protected from.”

“Those you don’t think he’s competent to make.”

“Just now, at least.”

“How competent will he ever become, Mr. Holmes, under your constant ‘protection’?”

“You do a child no favor by throwing it into the middle of a busy street and hoping it’s _competent_ to survive the traffic, Doctor. And before you answer, my brother is in many ways a child still.”

“So that’s what you’re doing? ‘Train up a child in the way he should go’?”

Mycroft nodded, pleased. “ ‘And when he is old he will not depart from it.’ The years have been – difficult. But Sherlock is growing, and will grow, into what England needs him to be.”

“There’s a world outside England. And it may need Sherlock too.”

“England has waited for him. The world can wait a few years longer.”

The man sighed slightly, finished his tea. “Well, I thank you for your time, Mr. Holmes. And I won’t contact Sherlock personally – for now, at least.”

Mycroft nodded. “Thank you.”

The American shifted in his seat, but did not rise. “There are a couple of names that keep showing up in your brother’s files,” he said after a moment.

Mycroft raised his eyebrows. “Similarly gifted?”

“Far from it. Gifted, but very differently.” Again he glanced at his notebook. “A John Watson – his housemate, I take it – and a police officer, Detective Lestrade, is it?”

“Detective Inspector. I’d hardly thought of either of them as particularly gifted in any way.”

“They have an even rarer gift.” The man’s mouth quirked up on one side. “The gift of being able to put up with a man as gifted as he is. Without punching him out on a daily basis.” His smile faded as he looked over the notebook at Mycroft. “Do either you or he know how incredibly fortunate he is in that? To have two people who understand, however incompletely, what he is – and yet are wholly, unequivocally _on his side?_ However frustrating, however alienating, he can be?”

Mycroft’s expression hardened slightly. “The number you choose is – interesting.”

“It’s precise. Oh, I don’t doubt you’re on Sherlock’s side, Mr. Holmes. But you’re on England’s first.”

There was a silence. “Well, I’ve taken up enough of your afternoon,” the man said, getting to his feet.

Mycroft rose as well. “Thank you. This has been a – _fascinating_ conversation.” He smiled, not warmly.

The American’s smile matched his. “I assure you, I’ve enjoyed it exactly as much as you have.”

“Good afternoon, Doctor Rosen. Anthea will see you out.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The quotation shared between Mycroft and Rosen is Proverbs 22:6.
> 
> Lee Rosen having been a stutterer is not canon: it's entirely my own conceit.


End file.
